Still Here

I'm still here, though my dearth of blogging and reviewing in the past week might indicate otherwise. I've just needed a break. My dear sister was here for much of the past week, blessing us with her loving presence...and what a rare treat to have a 3+ day visit (I'm so glad she got her sabbatical, for that and so many other reasons!). I loved watching my big sis bond with her precious niece. It did my heart good. And it was important just to take some days to be...to laugh, talk, stay up way too late, and enjoy the wonderful company of my sister.

We still did school this past week, though with Aunt M here, days took on a different color and flavor. Our Wednesday morning routine morphed into showing Aunt M all the fun things we've done so far this year. Thursday, the sweet girl's Daddy took the day off and all four of us headed to the Carnegie Science Center for a field trip day. We got to see their IMAX movie on Egyptian mummies, giving us a great visual introduction to the work we're going to be doing on ancient Egypt in the coming weeks.

Yesterday we showed Aunt M a little bit of what a relaxed Friday morning looks like in our home school. Art, poetry, music, puzzles, fun math. We took her to the airport around noon and said our tearful goodbyes on the sidewalk at the the departing flights area of the airport terminal. The sweet girl was so sad that her beloved aunt was leaving, but per usual, managed a bit of transference. After final hugs and kisses, she would hardly look at my sister but began crying because she wasn't going to be able to go into the airport and walk on the moving sidewalk like she did when we picked her up. "But I was looking forward to the moving sidewalk!" she sobbed, and of course her tears had very little to do with the moving sidewalk and almost everything to do with the saying goodbyes. But I understood that.

We went to Taco Bell on the way home. Felt better after a rest-time in the afternoon. And all got an earlier to bed than usual last night.

But today I just feel restless. It's a beautiful Saturday, and we spent the morning doing a leisurely family pancake breakfast (D. is a pancake artiste of true excellence...he can actually make pancakes that look like a wolf howling at the moon!) and a trip to the library. I've been trying to settle down to lesson plans for the next few weeks of school, but am mostly poking about looking at blogs, doing laundry, reading some bits of poetry, and pondering what's happening in the Episcopal Church. Our beloved and respected Bishop was deposed on Thursday, and there is much to pray about and through and for, not least for him and for his family and for our diocese in the wake of that unjust action.

Stumbled across this beautiful poem (hat tip to Karen Edmisten, whose blog I've been enjoying catching up with today). It spoke to my heart in the midst of all the church is going through.

If Everything is lost

If everything is lost, thanks be to God
If I must see it go, watch it go,
Watch it fade away, die
Thanks be to God that He is all I have.
And if I have Him not, I have nothing at all.
Nothing at all, only a farewell to the wind
Farewell to the grey sky
Goodbye, God be with you, evening October sky.
If all is lost, thanks be to God,
For He is He, and I, I am only I.

-- Dom Julian